WEST HILLS : Attorney to Head Panel on Permits

West Hills attorney Bob Scott, president of the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, has been elected head of a new task force aimed at unraveling the red tape at Los Angeles City Hall that some say is strangling new development.

Sources in the new administration of Mayor Richard Riordan said last week that Scott will be appointed to the City Planning Commission.

The Task Force on Code Simplification for Permit Streamlining began meeting last week to come up with ways that the bureaucracy can be reformed to respond to a new era of slower growth and a sagging housing market in Los Angeles, said Frank Eberhard, deputy director of the City Planning Department, who sits on the task force.

Existing city building codes “came in over a period when growth ran rampant,” Eberhard said. “They needed them to control things. Now, things have changed, and it’s going to take a while for the city to dig itself out of the legislative hole it’s dug itself into.”

The membership of the task force, assembled by 12th District City Councilman Hal Bernson, is still in flux, said Eberhard. It is expected to have about 25 members, including real estate agents, developers and homeowners, slightly weighted to industry interests, he said.

Their charge is to recommend revisions to simplify building and planning codes. The city Planning and Building Department and the Safety Department have submitted a list of 11 recommended changes in permit processes for the task force to discuss. Scott said the committee has been given free range to scrap these or enlarge on them.

The recommendations include shortening appeal periods, making it easier for developers to obtain exemptions from the California Environmental Quality Act, and eliminating newspaper notices of conditional-use permits and replacing them with broadcasts and direct mailings.

“The attitude for change is there now. The city is going to be more open to making things simple and removing the impediments that make people not want to rebuild L. A.,” Scott said.